


To Join, You Must Kill

by ReneeoftheStars



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Solo: A Star Wars Story Spoilers, Spoilers, death description, death mention, solo spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 21:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReneeoftheStars/pseuds/ReneeoftheStars
Summary: Thief Tobias Beckett allies himself with Boba Fett and other bounty hunters in a competition to join the ranks of a new crime syndicate called Crimson Dawn. The requirement for being accepted into the fold is straightforward enough: be one of the last five "applicants" to survive a to-the-death melee in the forests of Dathomir.





	To Join, You Must Kill

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story
> 
> Written for tumblr blog finish-the-clone-wars' writing Wednesday prompt: Battle Royale
> 
> **Note: I have only seen "Solo" once, so the characterizations of Beckett, Vos, and Val may not be entirely accurate. I wrote them to the best of my memory.

Tobias Beckett surveyed the beings surrounding him, holding his wounded hand against his chest, his heavy blaster pistol at his feet. He took a sharp breath as he took another step backwards and bumped into a black boulder. _Blast it._

A massive Gamorrean brandished his axe towards him, cutting off his escape through a narrow passage through some rock outcroppings. The Trandoshan that had shot him barred her teeth in an imitation of a smile, hissing as she leveled her hunting rifle at him. Behind her, Bax twitched on the ground, one hand groping uselessly for the blaster five feet away. Beckett watched the Cerean called Ni-Dune crouch down beside his temporary ally and saw a flash of a blade. Bax jerked violently and gurgled something, but Beckett only caught one or two of his words before he went still.

Ni-Dune straightened up, wiping off the knife on their cloak. They smirked and stepped lazily towards the Trandoshan, resting an elbow on her shoulder. Drenched in the red haze of Dathomir, Beckett had to admit that the murderers before him looked rather sinister.

“Nice little chase you led us on, Beckett,” Ni-Dune congratulated. “Great workout for us, wasn’t it, Gash? Sad about your Aqualish friend – he might’a made it if he hadn’t slowed down to wait for you.”

Beckett snorted. “He wouldn’t have made it regardless.” He’d taken what aid Bax had offered, but in this little competition, only five were allowed to take the job, and Beckett knew that his late ally had been too soft to make any further progress. Bax wasn’t a killer.

Strictly speaking, Beckett wasn’t either. Not quite like the ones before him, anyway.

Ni-Dune tutted. “And now you won’t make it either.”

“What do you think?” Gash hissed, slitted eyes gleaming as she glanced at her partner in crime. “Kill ‘im slow?”

“Get it over with,” the Gamorrean grunted, his pig-like snout curling. “Others’ll find us.”

“Much fun as it would be, we shouldn’t dally.” Ni-Dune sounded disappointed. Raising their own blaster, they grinned. “Say hi to your brother for me, will ya?”

Beckett’s mind raced, eyes darting between the killers and the spaces between them, wondering just how fast he’d have to be to dart between them. _No. They’re too close together._ And there was no way up; the rocks were too tall. He gritted his teeth. _So much for having allies._ He should have known better than to go against his own creed. _Well, I’m not going down without a fight._ His good hand flew towards his second blaster concealed in his coat –

Blasterfire erupted around him, and he threw himself sideways, scrambling for cover in the rocks. Chunks of stone flew all around him, bolts of red and green screaming past him –

And then there was silence.

Clutching the blaster in his good hand, Beckett crouched low, drawing shallow breaths as he waited for the sound of footsteps. _They’ll come around to get me. And when they do –_

“You can come out, Beckett.”

The voice that spoke was young, male, and out of place.

“Beckett! You dead?”

“No scales off our backs if he is,” a gravelly voice muttered.

 _Ah,_ Beckett thought. _Bossk._

As he raised himself up from his cover and stepped around the rocks, he said, “Nice of you to drop by.”

In the mist before him stood four figures, and even though they were all heavily armed, they made no threatening moves towards him. A Kyuzo male nodded curtly, his massive metallic hat dipping to momentarily hide his impassive face. He was sifting through the Gamorrean’s pockets – who now was no more than a dark mass on the hard ground – no doubt looking for any extra weapons he could use.

Bossk towered over the others, sneering down at the laser-riddled body of Gash. “I told her years ago I’d be the one to kill her. She never believed me.”

“You can gloat later,” the humanoid female next to him snapped. Aurra Sing stood out like a ghost against the black rocks and twisted red trees, but she seemed unconcerned about the visibility. Her long fingers wrapped around the stock of her slugthrower as she turned to appraise Beckett. “You better be worth the trouble, thief.”

“He will be. Or he won’t be around much longer.”

The owner of the young voice stepped forward, armor-clad and comfortable, like he had been born in his armor. He holstered his two blasters before reaching up and he removing his helmet with a hiss of decompressed air. Beckett’s eyebrows raised as he saw a boy of no more than seventeen meet his gaze.

“The name’s Boba Fett,” the boy said. “And until the last of the applicants are dead, you’re going to follow my orders so the five of us can secure that job with this Crimson Dawn outfit.”

Beckett barely repressed a scoff. “When we talked earlier, I thought you were the one in charge,” he said, turning towards Bossk.

The Trandoshan chuckled. “I never did say that. Boba here’s the one that booked us access to this delightful interview process. He’s in charge.”

The boy stepped up to Beckett, nearly eye-to-eye with him. “You got a problem with that?” Fett challenged.

Beckett hesitated only a moment before catching the looks on the other hunters’ faces. He forced a smile and stepped back, waving his hands dismissively. “I’m a lowly thief, not a bounty hunter. I don’t much care who’s in charge, so long as they don’t get me killed.”

“What, you don’t trust us?”

Beckett regarded the young man seriously. “I don’t trust anyone. And you shouldn’t either.”

Fett nodded, and Beckett wondered if he really understood. “Bossk told me it was you that pulled the heist on Canto Bight last year. I’m impressed.”

“Just doing my job,” Beckett replied easily.

“And as long as you keep doing it, and listen to me, we’ll get along just fine.” Fett clapped him on the shoulder, and Beckett had to fight the urge to shrug him off.

The Kyuzo said something unintelligible to Beckett, but Boba nodded. “You’re right, Embo. We should get moving.” Donning his helmet, he turned and strode away from the outcropping.

Beckett bent down and scooped up his fallen blaster. Holstering both his weapons, he noticed Ni-Dune’s body sprawled in the grass. Blood flowed from four holes in their body – two in the chest, two in the high-domed head.

Sing paused beside him and jerked her chin towards the late Scourge of Antar. “Gotta hit both the hearts, and both the brains. Otherwise they can still function. Learned that one a long time ago.”

“Killed a lot of people, then?” Beckett asked in what he hoped was a conversational tone.

Apparently it wasn’t. “More than you ever will.” She stalked off after Fett and Embo.

A massive clawed hand came down on his shoulder, and it took everything he had not to flinch.

“Aurra doesn’t trust anyone outside our little band,” Bossk hissed. “And even then, if we crossed her, she’d kill us all. Well, except maybe Boba. Just mind yourself, Beckett.”

“Will do,” Beckett grumbled. He fell in step behind the Trandoshan and snuck a glance at his comlink. The receiver flashed blue twice, stopped, repeated twice again, and continued the pattern. He replied with four blue flashes of his own, then hastily stowed it away.

*                             *                             *

_So this is the son of Jango Fett._

Not that Beckett had ever met the infamous Mandalorian personally, but the dead man’s reputation was well-known in all corners of the galaxy. This boy had big shoes to fill. _And he seems eager to do so._

“How many are left?” Beckett asked after a while. Even though they were limited to a two-mile radius, they hadn’t run into any of the other blasters-for-hire hoping to get in with Crimson Dawn.

The ground was cracked and arid, warped trees and vines somehow forcing their way into the red sky. There was something eerie in how quiet the area was; the few creatures they’d come across had scattered in a panic.

“Six, we think,” Fett said. “A Human, two Rodians, a Gand, a Twi’lelk, and a Nikto. The rest have been accounted for.”

“I think the two Rodians are dead,” Beckett said, flexing his injured hand. He had wrapped it with a strip of cloth to cover the blaster wound, but it still ached. “Saw some bodies, didn’t have time to stop and check,” he lied.

“Better for us, then.”

Beckett decided it was time to pick their brains. “Any of you guys think it’s weird to have this kind of competition just for a job?”

Embo, up in front of them, said something in reply, and Beckett shook his head. “No idea what you said, friend.”

“He said that Count Dooku once held a similar competition during the Clone Wars, to see who got the job of kidnapping the Chancellor,” Sing translated begrudgingly. “They weren’t encouraged to kill each other, so this one is more interesting.”

“Do you know what the job is? Or is it just becoming a part of Crimson Dawn?”

Fett gave a short laugh. “For you, probably membership. For us bounty hunters, it’s just a job.”

“And why would that be?”

Bossk snickered. “You ever heard of any organization getting a bounty hunter to stay on the payroll?”

“Good point.”

From time to time, Beckett could hear the whirring of small camera droids, and it was only that noise that reminded him that they were being watched by the shadowy leaders of Crimson Dawn. The new crime syndicate might have only cared about the surviving five beings, but it was clear they wanted to know exactly who they were hiring.

Embo raised his arm suddenly and came to a halt. The others slunk off the main road and ducked behind some arching roots, unholstering their blasters as they moved. They watched as Embo crept forward and took cover behind a curtain of vines.

After a minute, three sentients hurried through the thicket. They moved quickly, agitatedly, but with enough skill that Beckett knew they were in their element. A Twi’lek, a Gand, a Nikto. _Payday._ They slunk down what seemed to be a hill, until they were swallowed up by the trees.

A waving hand caught his eye, and he hurried over to join the others as they gathered around Fett.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” he said, his helmeted head angled forward. “Me, Embo, and Bossk will ambush them at the base of the cliff.”

“What cliff?” Beckett asked, frowning and looking around.

“The one we’re on,” Sing snarled. She jabbed a long finger past his shoulder. Following its path, Beckett realized that off to the left, the vegetation cleared to reveal a barren patch of land that launched into the sky.

“We came across it earlier,” Fett said in quick explanation. “There’s a path down hidden by some overgrowth. It’s steep, but cuts the descent in half. We’ll be down there before they are. Aurra, you’ll stay up here to give us a birds’-eye-view. I’ll give you a signal once we’re in position, and you can take a shot at them.” She nodded, adjusting her antenna. Fett turned to Beckett. “How’s your aim?”

“Good enough.”

“You’ll stay here with Aurra, then. Give us cover-fire. And don’t shoot any of us.”

Becket tapped his fingers to his brow in a brief salute. “You’re the boss.”

With a curt nod, Fett rose. “Let’s go.”

Sing’s dark-ringed eyes glared at Beckett as the other three disappeared into the ferns. “Let’s get something straight. I’m not here to babysit you. You pull your weight, or you die. You shoot one of my people, you die. You decide to do something other than this plan –”

“I die?” he finished dryly.

“Good, you’re not brain-dead. Come on.” Without a backward glance, she stalked towards the cliff edge. Biting his tongue, Beckett took another look at his comlink. It flashed red, once. _Nearby._ He replied with a short data burst that contained his coordinates.

Creeping towards the edge, he glanced down and felt faintly dizzy. The red trees sprawled far beneath them, enveloped in the red gleam of the planet’s local star. It was a long way down. Giving an irritated shake of his head, he glanced behind him. Apparently the cliff they were on was only a little outcropping of the full land formation – a craggy mountain rose above the trees behind him, jagged and arching.

“You know how to use a scope?” Sing demanded, shoving a modified sniper rifle in his face.

Gritting his teeth, Beckett took it. “I’ve gotten a crash course with it.”

“Just keep your eye glued to it and look before you shoot,” she warned. Laying prone, she set up her own rifle and began scanning the land below.

Beckett mimicked her, sweeping the scope between the branches of the trees. At least there wasn’t any leaves to peer through; the trees were as barren and cracked as the ground.

Movement caught his eye. Aiming the scope, the three sentients came into his sights.

Beckett inhaled, but Sing cut him off before he could get a word out. “I see them, I see them. Now get ready.”

“How’s Fett going to signal us?” Beckett asked, realizing his comlink wasn’t synched with theirs.

Without taking her eyes from her scope, she reached up and tapped a finger to the antenna sprouting from her head.

“Ah.”

They didn’t have long to wait. The targets had barely reached the bottom of the cliff when blasterfire lit up the ground around them. The Gand went down immediately under the hail of laser bolts, and the Twi’lek and Nikto dove for cover. Beckett was able to pinpoint the locations of Bossk, Fett, and Embo, who had fanned out to trap the remaining two. But the rocks and and vine deposit the Twi’lek and Nikto had taken cover behind was too thick to be penetrated by the blasterbolts.

“We’ve got a clear view, Boba,” Sing called into her internal comm system. She paused for a moment for the response, a slow grin creeping across her face. “With pleasure,” she replied. “Alright, Beckett. Now!”

They opened fire, red streaks raining down on the two survivors. They weren’t expecting it, and collapsed under the barrage.

Even from so high up, Becket still heard young Fett whoop.

Sing touched a spot on her head. “We’ll be down shortly,” she transmitted. “There’s a clearing about half a mile to the east. Meet us there – we’ll see if we can pick up any trail of the human. Only one more to go. And Boba…that ambush was very clean. You corralled them perfectly. Good work,” she added in satisfaction.

Beckett risked another glance at his comlink. A steady red light greeted him. _Here._ He handed the rifle back to Sing.

“Not bad, Beckett,” she allowed as she slung it over her shoulder. “Your fourth or fifth shot hit that Nikto’s head, it looked like. Prove yourself a bit more, I might trust you enough to bring you out on jobs.”

“That’s not going to happen,” a female voice from behind them said.

Sing leapt to her feet, swinging her rifle around to face the speaker. Beckett rose more slowly, his uninjured hand dropping down to his holster.

A human woman stood not twenty feet from them, her dark skin seeming to soak in the red light. She had a blaster drawn and aimed at Sing, her expression determined. “You’re not going to be taking any more jobs,” the woman said matter-of-factly. “You’re time’s up.”

Sing’s lips curled in a sneer. “Bold words, sweetheart. To think, you made it this far, just to –”

Beckett moved, faster than either of the women expected. Sing was so close to the edge of the cliff, and she was braced to shoot and run – her feet were too far apart to properly steady herself. Beckett took two steps to close the distance between them, and he shoved Sing backwards.

Her arms flailed even as her body tipped over backwards. She scrabbled for a handhold in the air as her heels struck against the edge of the cliff. Her wide, startled eyes met his for just a moment before Aurra Sing plummeted to the ground below.

To her credit, she did not scream.

Beckett exhaled sharply and turned to face the human woman. She met his gaze. “I _was_ going to shoot her.”

“Then you should have shot her, instead of talking,” Beckett said critically. Wincing, he shook out his injured hand; the impact had stung something awful. He walked over to her, placing a hand on her still-raised blaster. “Congratulations, Val,” he said, kissing her briefly, “you’re in the top five.”

An amused smile slid onto her face. “Are we going to have to kill the others she was with?”

Before he could answer, the whirr of a machine came droning from the dead forest. Beckett and Val raised their blasters as a sleek black speeder driven by a droid broke through the vines and pulled alongside them. Sitting in the backseat, a near-human man beamed at them. Scars – or perhaps markings – ran down his face, his groomed hair somewhat wind-swept.

“Well done, well done,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I must say, the two of you were not projected to come out as victors. But that was some excellent work, for the both of you. Darling,” he added, addressing Val, “your single-handed assault of those Rodians was superb.”

Val didn’t crack a smile. “All in a day’s work.”

“Excellent, excellent. See, that’s exactly what I like to hear. Oh, where are my manners. I am Dryden Vos, leader of Crimson Dawn. Now come, sit, and we’ll catch the others.”

Exchanging a glance, they clambered into the speeder beside him. Taking the short path, they raced down the angled side of the cliff, arriving at the plateau below very quickly. Fett, Bossk, and Embo had been intercepted by another two speeders.

Fett’s helmet was off. The smile on his face was proud, his head cocked jauntily to the side as he spoke with another Crimson Dawn agent. Hearing their approaching speeder, he broke off mid-sentence and turned to them. His eyes met Beckett’s and he nodded in approval. But then his eyes fell on Val, and he froze, the smile slipping from his face.

Bossk was the first to recover. “Where’s Aurra?” he demanded. “Who’s this?”

“This is Val, our fifth champion. I’m afraid dear Aurra Sing fell to her death,” Vos added, with such sympathy in his voice it had to be fake.

“ _What_?” Fett strode forward, getting right in Vos’s face. “What do you mean? There’s no way she would have let herself fall.”

“Oh, well, of course not, but you see, she didn’t _let_ herself fall, isn’t that right, Tobias?” Vos said pleasantly, turning to look at Beckett.

Bossk growled, and Embo spat something in his language. Fett had gone rigid. He stared as though Beckett were about to laugh and say he was joking.

Beckett met the young man’s gaze. “I told you: you shouldn’t trust anyone.”

Fett turned to look at the cliff, and before anyone could say a word, he vaulted into one of the speeders, kicked the droid out of the pilots’ seat, and raced towards the ground beneath the cliff.

“Oh dear,” Vos said mildly, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “He’s not taking that well, is he?”

“Get us over there!” Bossk roared at the third speeder droid. “Or I’ll rip you to pieces right now!”

“Yes, sir!” the droid squeaked. Fett’s fuming accomplices leapt into the speeder with two other Crimson Dawn personnel and followed.

Vos made a vague gesture. “Shall we?”

Beckett and Val didn’t respond; it was clear there was no point. The driver droid followed the other speeders’ path, and before too long, came to a stop at the base of the cliff.

Beckett dismounted, motioning for Val to stay in the speeder. She ignored him and climbed out, keeping a hand on her blaster and walking straight towards the seething Trandoshan. _Blast it, I love that woman._

Fett knelt on the ground, cradling Aurra Sing’s head in his arms, her body as broken and twisted as the trees around them. The long antenna extending from her scull had snapped in two. Her eyes were open, and Beckett had the unnerving sensation that she was staring straight at him.

“Get used to it, kid,” Beckett said. Bossk glowered and took a step forward, but a steadying hand from Embo and a drawn blaster from Val stopped him. “In this business, everyone dies a lot sooner than you’d like them to. Don’t put your trust in people, don’t rely on people, and you may pull through.”

“I don’t need any life lessons from you.” Fett’s voice was like ice. He looked up. Tears swam in his dark eyes, but the rest of his face was cold and hard. “You’ll pay for this,” he vowed, the tone low and grim. And in that moment, Beckett realized that this boy was already on his way to becoming as feared a bounty hunter as his father.

“Well, now,” Vos said, stepping up. “We won’t have any more disposing of employees. So any retribution you wish to dole out, Boba, will have to wait until Tobias here no longer answers to us.” He turned slightly so he could see the five of them. “Boba, Bossk, Embo, as freelance bounty hunters, dedication to our syndicate won’t be required – though it would be appreciated – but you have proven yourselves capable, and will get priority consideration regarding assignments. Val, Tobias, as you understood when you agreed to this tournament, this is your official induction into our organization.” Vos leered, and Beckett felt a shiver crawl up his spine. “Welcome to Crimson Dawn.”


End file.
